LEXINGTON — Lexington coach Mike Moore is a track and field junkie.
He got excited watching his kids run cool downs on their home track after Saturday’s Ray Mitchell Invitational because “it means they are taking care of their bodies.”
Six and a half hours after the meet commenced, he still had enough energy to practically jump out of his shoes, high-fiving his girls when they won the final event, the 4×400 meter relay, to lock up the team runner-up trophy.
And he was still huddling with his boys, coaching them up and giving them a pep talk, after they hadm been presented with the team championship trophy for the second year in a row.
“This,” Moore said more than once, “is fun.”
His passion, obviously, is infectious.
The Lex boys made it two titles in two tries since the Lex Invite was renamed after the legendary coach Mitchell to commemorate last year’s 50th anniversary. The Minutemen won this time by a 104-80.5 margin over Avon in the strongest field of any regular season meet that will be held in north central Ohio this spring.
Upper Arlington was third (63.33), followed by Ashland (58) and Clear Fork (54.66). Rounding out the top 10 were Strongsville, Perrysburg, Glen Oak, Oregon Clay and Ontario.
On the girls side, Upper Arlington wasn’t going to be caught, but Lex was tied with Avon going into the 4×4, with the runner-up trophy at stake. Freshmen Olivia Thomas and Mia Twedt ran the first two legs for Lex and turned things over to junior Sylvia Secrist and senior Allison Laury en route to a winning time of 4:00.31.
“Upper Arlington is an amazing team and their girls are just horses. To get second place to them is awesome,” Moore said. “The girls gave it their all … PR after PR. We just needed a break in the weather.”
It was the third win of the day for Thomas. She also ran pop-off on the first place 4×200 relay and won the 300 hurdles (48.29), a race her sister, Emily, excelled in before graduating last year. Twedt meanwhile was coming off a third-place time of 2:17 in the 800, which would have been a meet record if not for the two girls in front of her.
“I challenged them before the last race,” Moore said. “To have every girl PR, PR, PR. Allie Laury ran a 58 (second) anchor leg; Sylvia went 60. And Mia ran a 59 split. We ran a 4 flat with two freshmen on the team. That was fun.
“I told them pressure either cracks you or makes diamonds. I love that quote. They rose to the occasion.”
Thomas and Laury were also bookends on the first-place 4×2 crew (1:46.08), with senior Tatum Stover running the second leg and handing off to Secrist.
A third relay title for Lex went to the 4×800 quartet of seniors Katya Prykhodko and Brailey Slone, junior Evalynn Adkins and freshman Gabi Twedt (9:45.10).
“We just wanted to come in and do our best,” Thomas said. “I’m very happy with all the work the team put in to get here.”
On the boys side, there was no drama at the end thanks to Lex having things well in hand.
Senior All-American Latrell Hughes was the lone individual champ for the Minutemen, winning the 400 in a meet record 48.06, but Lex’s remarkable depth was on full display. They won two relay races and had double placers in three events.
Gage Devaney and Luke Haring were second and fifth, respectively in the 1,600. Lincoln Rice and John Bartone were second and third, respectively, in the 3,200, and Cameron Glennon and Azariah Roper were second and third, respectively, in the long jump.
Collaborating to win the 4×2 in 1:29.56 were Glennon, Cohen Laurtzenhiser, Eben Cochran and Hughes. Nathan Reed joined forces with siblings Clay, Drew and Will Hooper to win the 4×8 in 8:14.78.
Cochran was runner-up in the 200 and Hughes’ twin brother, Dantrelle, was third in the 300 hurdles.
It was the first outdoor invite this season for Latrell Hughes, a reigning outdoor and indoor state champ in the 800. In his last indoor meet, the New Balance Nationals in Boston, he earned All-America honors with a fourth-place finish in the 800, but barely escaped disaster.
With 300 meters to go, a competitor fell into him and clipped his ankle with his shoe.
“I was running on adrenaline, but at the end of the race, a kid pointed down at my feet and I saw blood gushing out of my sock,” Hughes said. “A couple of inches deeper it could have been really bad, but I still needed six stitches.”
Moore said a severed tendon would have ended Hughes’ outdoor season, so he was mighty lucky.
“It’s nice to be outdoors,” said the Lex star, who will run anything from the 100 to 800 and even tried the 1,600 in a small meet earlier this past week. “This was my first indoor season (after playing basketball the previous three winters). I’m not a big fan of being indoors, but it definitely helped (with conditioning).”
Big day for Ashland pair
Two of the bigger stories to come out of the meet were Ashland juniors Sadie Walter and Oaklynn Burns.
Walter tackled a rare back-to-back double — the 100 hurdles and 100 dash. She won the former in 15.49 and was runner-up in the latter 12.95, losing only to double sprint champ Alysa Breidger of Avon.
Burns won the long jump with a leap of 17-3. What makes that first-place performance extra special is that Burns only began jumping during the indoor season. She’s already popped 17-footers twice outdoors.
To put Saturday’s winning mark in perspective, it would have been runner-up in last year’s Division III state meet and fourth in DII. It’s one of the top DII marks in the state so far, with Ashland dropping to DII with division expansion this year.
“I did it in seventh grade and I was getting bored with just doing running events, so I thought, why not do something new,” said Burns, who has grown four inches to 6-0 since junior high. “I just want to keep getting better.”
The school record is 17-11, set nearly 40 years ago.
“After the first practice indoors I thought I could be pretty good,” Burns said. “Whatever I get, I get. It wouldn’t hurt to get the record. I think the key is just doing my best and not thinking about what everyone else is doing.
“I just run and jump. I try to get as far as I can. Sometimes I forget to breathe, so now I’m trying to remember to breathe when I’m doing it.”
Walter was coming off a Madison Invitational where she won the 100 hurdles, the 100 dash and the 300 hurdles in leading Ashland’s girls to the team title. She was hoping to do all three again at Lex, along with the 4×400, but tweaked something in her second race and called it a day.
“I’m going to try to do both (the 100 hurdles and 100) more this year, especially because the hurdles warms me up for the 100,” she said. “I think the races can help each other and running them (back-to-back) helps with my mental focus.”
Walter is emerging from the shadow of her sister Vivian, a star hurdler and vaulter now competing for Ashland University.
(Vivian) really pushed me, especially mentally,” Walter said. “She was really hard on me and helped me a lot with training. I’m reaching to be where she was. She set a good baseline for what I need to do and the goals I want to reach.”
Walter’s mom, Gail, is head coach of the Arrow girls and a former star for Ashland. She likes the idea of running those back-to-back races.
“Sadie’s fast and she’s our fastest 100 runner right now,” she said. “There were extra heats in races today, so it’s doable. She enjoys it, it’s good for speed development and it pushes her to her top speed.”
Other local champs
Also winning gold medals were Clear Fork’s Davis Hoeflich in the high jump (6-6) and Julian Mills in the shot put (54-6) and the Ontario girls 4×100 team of Jazlyn Johnson, Emma Kaple, Alayna Foltz and Sasha Bulakovski (51.48).
It was Hoeflich’s best jump outdoors since he went 6-8 for state runner-up honors as a freshman in 2024. He struggled all of last spring after tearing two tendons during basketball season. His best height was 6-3 at the Lexington regional meet.
“Last year it always hurt,” Hoeflich said. “My ankle couldn’t take the pressure when I jumped. I think a realistic goal this season would be 6-10, but I really want 7 feet. My footwork and approach (to the bar) is definitely back to where it was.”
The Clear Fork boys 4×4 team also bears watching, especially with the Colts dropping to Division III this season. The crew of Landon McKee, Marcus Hoeflich, Devyn Oswalt and Ethan Beck was second to Upper Arlington, beating out Lex’s team of Reed, Lautenzhiser and the Hughes twins by a 3:28.69 to 3:29.1 margin.
Both Hughes were on the 4×4 that took runner-up in DI at state last year. This season, Lex should be a top contender for the team championship in DII.
That should tell you all you need to know about the fast company that Clear Fork is keeping.
This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: ‘This is fun’ Lex boys repeat, girls second in loaded Mitchell Invite
Reporting by Jon Spencer, Mansfield News Journal / Mansfield News Journal
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